


Tell me, would you kill?

by FREAKYPUMPKIN



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: All Human, College flashbacks, Lots of dialogue, M/M, Magnus tracks down Alec, Photographer!Magnus, Second Chance, Writer!Alec, hacker!magnus, lots of feelings, we had an affair in college and meet again AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-23 13:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10720473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FREAKYPUMPKIN/pseuds/FREAKYPUMPKIN
Summary: Magnus and Alec had an affair in college, while Magnus had been still dating Camille, now it's five years later, Alec is an accomplished writer of crime thrillers and Magnus shows up on his doorstep ... things move from there.(Alec has blue eyes and I generally use the book looks, because I started this story before the show came out.)





	1. Prologue

The first time they met, their surfaces cracked. It was raining and it didn't matter. There was blood on the ground.

"What are you looking at?"

Blue eyes collided with gold-green ones. 

"Just you."

Two weeks into the new semester a couple of guys thought it might be fun to gang up on the gay emo kid in their modern literature class. It didn't work out the way they had planned because the gay emo kid, who wasn't exactly emo, just kind of fond of the color black, could pack a punch. Now they were lying on the ground; defeated, but not dead. 

"You need some help?"

Alec was bleeding from a nasty scratch on his right cheek and Magnus was sure there were bruises all over his body. Maybe some scratches, too, that needed at least some cleaning. But the rain seemed to be doing actually a good job at that. It was cold and clear. 

"I'm fine."

Magnus pushed himself off the wall, he had been leaning against and started walking towards the younger man. He only stopped when they were almost standing toe to toe. Almost there.

Alec hadn't backed away, but Magnus suspected, that it was more likely due to his worn out body than actual self-confidence in that matter. His blue eyes looked up at Magnus with a slight trace of fear, which brought those solid frozen lakes to the verge of breaking, of cracking. 

-+-

There is a crack in everything, that's how light gets in. (Leonard Cohen - Anthem)

-+-

Magnus leaned slightly forward and took another half step. He raised one hand to softly trace the line of Alec's jaw with his fingertips. As he reached his chin, he let his thumb brush across his bottom lip. 

"Your girlfriends not waiting for you?", the gay emo kid whispered against Magnus' lips. He wasn't exactly emo and actually rather cute and it was intoxicating to watch his eyes darken into shards of the midnight sky. Magnus grinned and took delight in the taste of cold rain on Alec's lips, his fingers tangled with the wet strands of ink-black hair.

"Not tonight", he murmured as he lost himself in blue depths. "Not tonight."

That's how they really met for the first time, how their surfaces, their masks got the first crack. But it still took five more years for them to actually break.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years after the prologue, there's a 'Morning after'-discussion ...

Was there a meal, that said 'You can take a shower, but please leave afterwards'?

Alec didn't know, so he simply wrote the words onto one plate of scrambled eggs with ketchup. But it turned out, that it were too many words for one plate, which led to the fact, that when Magnus got up and reached the kitchen he was greeted with a plate of scrambled eggs with the words 'Go away' written across it. With ketchup. 

"You want me to move in?", he asked with a grin on his face while he sat down at the kitchen table in front of the 'Go away'-eggs. Alec, who was sitting across from him, looked up the other plate of scrambled eggs with the noticeable higher amount of ketchup on top.

"What?", he asked with a puzzled expression. 

"Never seen 'The vow'?"

"I guess, that's a movie?"

"Nevermind." Magnus sighed and grabbed one of the three forks, that were lying scattered across the table. He started poking around in the eggs and Alec let his own gaze fall to the plate in front of himself. 

"We should talk about last night-", Alec began, but was interrupted by the sound of a chair being pushed back. He looked up and watched Magnus walking away towards the sink. 

"Sure, let me just get some water." His voice was calm, but Alec could see his shoulders tensing a little bit. It had been almost four years since their last night together and he was still able to see those little details. Or was it just because Magnus didn't wear a shirt? Would everybody else notice it as well? 

It wasn't anything special, right? 

-+-

Magnus watched the cold water as it slowly filled the glass in his hand. His head was still pounding and his throat had quite a lot of things in common with sandpaper, but it wasn't that bad. He hadn't been that drunk last night. He had just needed a little bit of extra courage. The courage to walk to Alec's apartment door. The courage to actually knock on said door. The courage to stay there till he opens and not run away as soon as he heard somebody moving inside. 

He knew it was stupid and kind of pathetic, but ... it was him. The cute, emo kid, who wasn't exactly emo and simply looked stunning in black. The one guy, who he wanted to wake up to every single morning. The one guy, he had let get away after college. But, he was determined to make this right this time.

"How about, we just pretend last night didn't happen or at least was a very desperate one-time-thing and we carry on with our lifes?", Alec's voice sounded from the kitchen table. 

So much for that. 

Magnus hadn't had that much to drink last night before he had gotten of to Alec's apartment, but he still had been drunk enough, that he hadn't managed to make the little voice in his head, that started screaming 'I want you!' the moment Alec had opened the door, to just shut up. One thing had led to another and in the end they had ended up in the bedroom with decidedly less clothing on than in the beginning. It had been really nice and had painfully reminded Magnus of how much he had missed Alec. Maybe last night hadn't been that big of a mistake after all. 

-+-

Alec watched Magnus' shoulder tense even more, then the taller man took a deep breath and his shoulders were a bit more relaxed again. He almost got lost in the movement of the other man's muscles underneath his smooth skin. Alec's fingers itched to run across his skin again, to feel the shudders his touch could elicit. He wanted to trace every line ... and STOP!

"You know, I figured you'd say something like that", Magnus began and finally turned around again. He leaned back against the sink and took a big gulp from the glass in his hand. After that he placed the glass next to the sink and crossed his arms in from of his chest. Maybe, I should get him a shirt, Alec thought, but that thought was interrupted when Magnus started talking again. "and that is the reason, I already prepared a well-defined answer for it, that portrays the feelings I harbor towards this whole situation quite fittingly."

Alec nodded slowly. "And that answer would be?"

Magnus cleared his throat. Back in college he had been known for his unmatched ability to simply talk whoever was dumb enough to oppose him or his opinion into submission. He had a way with words that Alec had always envied him for, well, only when it was about talking. Alec sucked at talking, but when it came to writing there had been nobody he couldn't bring to tears with his short-stories ... or simply make them run away screaming on the top of their lungs. Magnus included, but the running away part had never quite worked with him. 

"No."

"What?"

Magnus narrowed his eyebrows and pressed his lips into a thin line. Looking like this he was the incarnation of the word 'determination'. Alec gulped. 

"No, I don't want to pretend nothing has happened because, well, it has. I want it to mean something, to be the start of something. And no, I don't want to just walk away the next morning. I want to stay." With the last word he had reached the table and was now staring Alec dead in the eye, who currently felt like a deer caught in the headlights. He finally managed to clear his throat and ask with only a slightly high-pitched voice.

"Do-do I get an elaboration of that answer?"

-+- 

Magnus raised one eyebrow. Elaborate? Why? He had spent hours to come up with those lines until he was finally convinced that they would convey the very core of his feeling for the man in front of him. But obviously he was wrong ... or planning on dating a writer just turned out to be more difficult than he had expected.   
"That was my elaboration."

Alec tilted his head a look of utter confusion on his face. He was so cute, when he was confused. 

"Of what?"

"Of the 'No'."

Alec took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. A few seconds of very uncomfortable silence passed. 

"Magnus", he looked up at the taller man whose eyebrow was still raised. "Why is this suddenly such a big deal for you? We had plenty of these nights during college and you never had a problem with getting up the next morning and returning to your girlfriend."

The girlfriend, that had actually only been there on very rare occasions whenever she had managed to get back from another guy's bed before him. How did that relationship ever work? Maybe it had been more of a 'mutual understanding' that had kept Camille and Magnus together. At least Magnus' ego refused to think that he had ever been really in love with that ... quite mean person. 

"That's right, but things are different now."

Now it was Alec's turn to raise an eyebrow in disbelief. 

"What?", he asked dryly, "did she dump you?"

That hurt ... a little bit ... very much. Magnus cleared his throat and tried not to flinch under the angry glare of those two blue orbs he had been dreaming about the past few months. They had kind of hunted him from hotel to motel and through day and night. And now they were staring him down despite the fact, that he was the one standing and Alec was the one sitting. How quickly things could change.

"Well, if you are asking if we are still dating, then the answer is 'no' -"

"So, she did dump you?"

Damn, he was good.

"Yes, okay, she dumped me, but she dumped me about a year and a half ago and-"

"And you finally got bored enough to remember your stupid fling from college?" Alec angrily jumped up from the chair. "Did you really think-"

"I didn't think back then, okay? That is my whole dilemma, Alec, I didn't think about what an amazing person you are and how happy I am whenever I am with you and-"

"We only had sex, there was nothing more", Alec hissed. he clenched his fists and crossed his arms in front of his chest, but it seemed more to be some kind of precaution, so he wouldn't throw something at Magnus or try to strangle him. "You didn't know me back then and you still don't know anything about me. So why don't you just get lost like you always did." 

Calm down, Magnus thought. Don't hit him. Don't hit him. Don't. Throw. The. Fork. His right hand twitched. Not the glass either.

The silence that followed these words was thick, cold and heavy. The worst part of the whole situation was, that Alec actually was kind of right. Well, right now Magnus knew a lot about him - birthday, middle name, favorite color, current profession, favorite restaurant, name of last boyfriend and many more - but the truth was that he hadn't acquired that knowledge from talking to Alec. Magnus was good with computers and had actually earned the money for his trip to New York as a hacker. A very good one and everything he knew right now, did he know because he hadn't respected Alec's privacy. Once again, that wasn't the way to start a relationship or even the talk about a possible relationship, but he had been going crazy about this guy. That and he had wanted to make sure he was single, then one thing let to another and by the end of the day Magnus had done a complete background check. 

Yeah, he definitely wouldn't tell Alec that right now. Maybe tomorrow, or next week, if he was still alive by then. Magnus took another deep breath. 

"Listen", he said with the calmest voice he could manage, "I made mistakes in the past, but I really like you-" Alec opened his mouth to interject. "-don't question my feelings, it took me long enough to figure them out myself-" Alec closed his mouth again, but he kept glaring daggers at Magnus nonetheless. "And all I am asking of you is to give me a chance to prove them to you."

Another while of highly uncomfortable silence passed. Alec pursed his lips and Magnus wanted to kiss them, but he successfully restrained himself from jumping over the table. 

"Prove them?"

"Exactly." Magnus nodded with - as he hoped - the most sincere look on his face that he ever had. "And if you say no, then we will just write this off as drunk sex, that didn't mean anything." With a pointed look at Alec he added. "But still happened."

-+-

Alec chewed on his lower lip. "Just drunk sex?", he asked to make sure, he had gotten it right. Magnus nodded once again and Alec was pretty sure that he hadn't seen him look so absolutely sincere since the day somebody had asked him, if he would really go out for the kill if anybody ever would take his glitter from him again. 

"Just two ... friends-" That word actually seemed to bring him physical pain. "-being drunk and fooling around." And after that Alec was sure, that the other man was indeed enduring physical pain just from saying those words out loud. He could see him practically squirming. But what scared him most was the fact that he liked it.   
Magnus Bane had been his (seemingly) unobtainable college-crush. He was funny, self-confident and despite the fact that he was very open and obvious about his sexuality he had managed it that people respected or at least ignored him. Something Alec had never gotten quite done. No matter how hard he had tried to fuse with his surroundings there had always been that one person who noticed him and thought 'hey, let's go, make fun of the loner over there.' Not, that he couldn't hold himself in a fight, but it was still very annoying. Then that one night the fight behind the history-building had happened and Alec was just frustrated and almost done with the while world. He just wanted to quit college and try something else. It was that moment, that Magnus had found him, had kissed him and now that exact same man was standing in front of him and ... begging for a second chance? Should he risk it?

"Yeah and I have to say, that for someone who is hungover you're actually looking good. What did you have last night? I had, uhm, Long Island Ice Tea aaaand judging by the look you are giving me, you don't really want to talk about it." He closed his mouth and pressed his lips into a thin line. Alec didn't really know, what kind of look he was giving him because he didn't intend to give him a certain look. All he wanted was to be somewhere else, even his sister's birthday party had been a more pleasant experience. (He was sure, Isabelle had had fun like, but he as the responsible older brother had had one hell of a night; with a sprained wrist the next morning.) When it came to the point of being drunk in that drunk-sex-story Magnus was offering Alec found himself confronted with his guilty conscience. 

He hadn't been drunk. 

"I had a beer."

Magnus looked like a deer in the headlights. This morning was just full of surprises. 

"What?"

While Alec's mind screamed 'LIE! LIE! LIE! LIE!', his mouth decided to completely mess up his life. 

"I only had a beer last night", he said and it wasn't much more than a whisper, but as there was no other sound in the room Magnus could still clearly hear him. 

"WHAT?" It didn't stop him from screaming out loud. "A BEER?! ONE BEER?!"

-+-

Magnus couldn't believe it and he couldn't believe it even more as the whole range of that little fact dawned on him. Alec hadn't been drunk last night and it still had happened. 

"Oh my god, I am so definitely staying."

"What? Why?"

"Well, if you don't happen to sleep with ever drunk man that appears on your doorstep - which I very much hope you don't - then you canT deny that there is still at   
least physical attraction and with that given, one can build up a relationship."

He felt his determination to make this work reach a whole new level. 

-+-

"Oh yeah?", Alec challenged. "What tells me that you aren't here just because of your physical attraction to me? Once you get bored with me and my somehow attracting looks, you're going to leave anyway." He leaned onto his hands on top of the table and looked Magnus dead in the eye. The other man copied his gesture and suddenly their faces were very close to each other. 

"I am here because I want you and by that I don't mean only your body." Magnus' eyes trailed from Alec's eyes to his lips, following the line of his throat till reaching the collar of his shirt, which due to the current posture allowed quite a look at his naked chest beneath the fabric. "Though I have to say, that I don't understand how you still can be so insecure about your looks."

As he bit his lower lip Alec was reminded of the sensation of Magnus' lips brushing against the skin of his chest, leaving open-mouthed kisses there on the away down - Alec almost had to slam his head against something very concrete to get rid of those thoughts. The fact, that they were actual memories and not some lunatic fantasies didn't make it much easier. He sighed heavily and Magnus started grinning like a child on Christmas eve. 

"Fine", he muttered and made sure to look straight at the table as he continued, "I'll give you the chance to prove your ... feelings." That word just sounded wrong in the current situation. Alec raised his gaze again and was directly confronted with a pair of shining green eyes. How could eyes be so green?

"Do you have a place to stay right now?"

If he recalled correctly Magnus had moved to France after graduating from college. 

"I've been staying at a hotel for the past couple of nights." 

"Okay, you can stay here, but-" Alec raised one hand to interject Magnus' happy squealing right from the start. "- only under two conditions." 

Magnus stood up straight again and nodded slowly. Alec took a deep breath. The other man wanted to prove himself, very well, but this time, they would play the game according to Alec's rules. He held up his index finger. "First one: The deadline for my next book is on August 26th. Till then, no sex."

Magnus' eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline, but he didn't say anything though Alec could clearly see that he was dying to complain. Okay, so far so good. 

"Second one", Alec held up a second finger and with the next condition he felt a bit selfish, but it was too late to turn back now. "For the same amount of time, no makeup."

"What? Come on, now you are just trying to cripple me", Magnus exclaimed and threw his hands up in the air. Alec smirked. 

"Already giving up?"

-+-

Magnus looked at Alec for a long time. He took in his gleaming blue eyes, his disheveled ink-black hair, his soft pink lips which were currently stretched into the most adorable crooked smile he had ever seen. He reminisced about how it felt to have his body pressed flush against his own, to hear Alec's chuckle against his lips, to have his breath tickling his own skin, how much fun it was to playfully tease the younger man. At that a grin appeared on Magnus' lips ad even without looking in a mirror, he knew that his expression had a slight craziness mixed within. 

Alec's eyes followed him, confusion showing in those deep blue orbs, as he rounded the table and finally stopped right in front of the writer. Magnus thoughtfully rubbed his chin with one finger before softly tracing the line of Alec's jaw like he had done that night so many years ago. 

"Okay, sweetheart, I accept your conditions", he whispered. Alec for a second seemed honestly surprised about that. Magnus' grin grew even wider. He lifted Alec's chin a little bit and pinned him between him and the table. Only a few inches were left between their faces and Magnus took great pleasure in the fact that Alec's breath hitched a bit. He closed the last gap between them. 

Suddenly he was back in the night behind the history-building, drenched by the rain and burning up from the inside at the same time. Alec's lips were moving against his. He drowned in the feeling as he had back then. People always talked about tasting something while kissing, but Magnus could only think of describing that sensation as feeling. When he kissed Alec he felt warmth, he felt rain against his skin, that washed his burdens away and he felt the need to make this boy who was now a grown man his own. 

Slowly he ran his tongue across Alec's lower lip and sighed as he felt the other's lips part slightly. The temperature was rising between them. Alec moaned softly as Magnus' tongue brushed against his. Magnus opened his eyes a bit and could't help but smile against the younger man's lips. Alec's cheeks were flushed a deliciously scarlet red. It was obvious to Magnus who had already shared numerous kisses with him, that his brain was fighting against his body's desires. He really hoped the latter would win. 

Magnus decided to press his luck. He let his arms slide down from Alec's shoulders, tracing the sides of his chest and when he finally reached the hem of his shirt he let his hands wander under the fabric to tease the heated skin beneath. But as soon as he tried to lift the shirt a little, he felt a firm grip around both wrists. Magnus smirked into the kiss. He lightly bit Alec's lower lip and elicited a soft whimper. The grip around his wrists loosened slightly, but got form again as soon as Alec finally broke the kiss. Magnus still didn't see a reason to remove his hands from underneath his shirt. 

"Stop it", came Alec's breathless command which due to the breathlessness kind of lost a bit of its impact. "I said-"

"I know, what you said", Magnus mumbled. He let his lips brush against the side of Alec's neck. "I accepted your conditions." He placed light kisses on the soft skin and made his way up to his earlobe. "But I will make you regret them."

With that he took a step back and let his gaze wander across the room. It was big and at the same time a kitchen and a living room. 

"I guess, I'll be sleeping on the couch?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College-flashbacks

Finding the right beginning for a new book never was an easy task and to find the right words for said beginning was an even greater challenge; at least for Alec. He knew other writers who wrote the first chapter or the prologue of a new manuscript without even breaking a sweat while to Alec it felt like breaking all of his fingers most of the time. It might sound overly dramatic, but when writing the first few chapters, of which he always had about five to ten different versions, Alec got more cramps in his hands than while he wrote the rest. So after collecting all of his notes on the plot and the characters Alec started staring at the screen of his laptop and cursing that blinking line at the top of a new, blank word-document. 

He called these moments of staring and cursing the 'evil beginning'. Though this time there was another completely different 'evil beginning' happening in his apartment. It even had a different name. Magnus Bane. Since Magnus had moved in he tried to find the 'right way' of decorating his 'new home', also known as Alec's couch. After a heated discussion this morning it included the small table between the TV and the couch as well. 

Right now Alec was sitting at the kitchen table and instead of performing his staring and cursing, his gaze kept wandering to the figure seated on top of the little table in front of the couch with crossed legs and intently focused on the task of folding a crane with the pages of an old newspaper. Magnus wore an electric blue shirt with the logo of their college printed on the back. Alec couldn't help but smile. He knew that there was a lime green pullover with the same logo and he knew that Magnus had to protest in front of the principal's office for about one week to get those clothes in the colors he wanted. The small amount of glitter that reflected the light of the living room lamp on the ceiling whenever Magnus moved had been added by himself afterwards. The principal had almost lost his cool the next day. Alec sighed quietly. It had been one of their fun mornings together discussing that matter. Camille had been on vacation in Italy visiting an aunt. Most of the students had been gone between semester .

-+-

_The fabric felt cool and almost velvety against Alec's fingertips._

_"I still can't believe that you really did it", he muttered without lifting his eyes from the lime green pullover lying in his lap. "And is this really the same fabric mine is made of? Because I am pretty sure, that this one's seams don't scratch the skin when I'd be wearing it." With the last words he turned around to look at Magnus whose head was still resting on the pillow with his eyes closed. But Alec knew he wasn't asleep. Magnus' lips stretched into a wide smile that caused warmth to pool in Alec's chest, right next to his heart. Magnus lazily opened one eye and gazed at Alec who was sitting next to him on the bed, but in contrast to the older student he was wearing his  boxer shorts and was seated on top of the blanket._

_"Well, most straight men may look down on those of their gender that know how to properly treat different fabrics, but no malicious snort or dismissive look will ever make me pass on the luxury of wearing clothes that are as soft as a feather's touch against my skin."_

_He opened the other eye too and looked at Alec expectantly, expecting him to agree. Alec simply shook his head and gave Magnus a crooked smile in return._

_"Did you practice that little speech in front of the mirror?", he chuckled. Magnus sat up a little and leaned against the heading section of the bed, then he stretched his arms above his head._

_"You don't have to practice saying the things you know by heart." He smirked and Alec felt like he could get lost in the moment, with the mischievous gleam in Magnus' green eyes making his whole face light up. They had spent the last night at Magnus' dorm room because that's how they did it most of the time and Alec wondered if Magnus would ever see his own room._

_"Okay, okay, but honestly, would it have killed you to take the shirt and the pullover in one of the two offered colors?" They had been offered the choice between grey or black; two colors that in the closet of Magnus Bane didn't exist. Still Alec couldn't help but wonder. Magnus could haven gotten kicked out for the caused trouble, but he had taken the risk nonetheless and only because he didn't agree with the college's taste in colors?_

_"No", Magnus said and suddenly his voice sounded unusual serious. "It wouldn't have killed me, but I wanted to make a point. I-"_

_"A lime green one?", Alec interjected with a teasing grin and a cocked eyebrow. Magnus looked at him first with confusion clearly written across his face, but his expression quickly turned into a playful glare._

_"You've got a problem with my choice in colors?", he growled, but the twinkle in his eyes betrayed the threatening tone in his voice. Alec placed one hand dramatically on his chest where his heart was beating just a little bit faster than before._

_"I would never do that", he replied with feigned shock, "how could you even think that I would ever-" He was cut of when Magnus seized his shoulders and brought him down onto the mattress supporting himself with his hands on either side of Alec's head. The younger boy looked up at him still taken aback with pure surprise by the sudden action, heavy breaths escaping his slightly parted lips. Magnus grinned slyly at Alec's open expression and lowered himself a bit till their faces were only millimeters apart._

_"You better", Magnus whispered and Alec already expected their lips to meet the next moment, but instead one of the other student's hands disappeared from next to his head. His fingertips brushed against Alec's bare sides searching for that one spot that always made him squirm with breathless laughter escaping his lips. Magnus held Alec securely in place by straddling his hips and used his other hand as well to tickle Alec into submission. The younger boy kicked put behind Magnus' back, but without much effect. The desperate tries to stop Magnus' hands from moving with his own ended up similarly ineffective._

_"No! Ma-Magnus, stop! Stop, pl-please!", he begged his laughter turning into the squeals his sister had always teased him for. Magnus had never had never made fun of him for that reason._

_"Will you promise me to never question my choice of colors or my reasons for that choice ever again?", Magnus asked while he mercilessly continued with the tickling._

_"Yes, yes, I promise!", Alec almost screamed and finally Magnus' fingers stilled and he was allowed to catch his breath, but it took a while. He was still breathing heavily when he looked up at Magnus locking eyes with him. Alec didn't quite understand the look Magnus was giving him as well as the little smile on his lips that seemed to be a bit off. But right now, Alec didn't have the power to question any of that. Once again Magnus brought his face down their noses almost brushing and this time there was a kiss speeding up Alec's heartbeat, but this time for a completely different reason._

_It was a roller coaster of emotions whenever they were together._

-+-

Alec knitted his brows. Hadn't it always been just sex between them? 

He turned his head to finally start his staring and cursing. After all he had already typed two words. 

'Chapter One'

It was practically writing itself. Alec sighed in frustration and buried his face in his hands. 

"Need help?", Magnus' voice suddenly sounded right next to him. Alec's head shot up and he slowly blinked at the older man for a few seconds. He smiled and it seemed to be a little bit off. Alec swallowed hard. It had always been just sex between them, pure physical attraction. There had been nothing else. Right?  

"Uhm", he mumbled, "no, it's okay, the beginning is never easy. I've always had problems to find the right point to start the story." 

Magnus pursed his lips, nodded slowly and then turned his head to inspect the notes that lay scattered across the kitchen table. Thoughtfully he rubbed his chin, but remained silent. Alec tilted his head as he watched his new roommate. He didn't expect him to have read any of the books he had published so far. He wouldn't get anything from his notes.  

"Why don't you start at a subway station?"

"Huh?" Not Alec's smartest remark, but he had no idea what Magnus was talking about. A subway station? Why a subway station? Was he suggesting that Alec should try writing while sitting at a subway station?

"With Will, you know", Magnus continued and this time his smile seemed just right. Small, warm, honest. He hadn't smiled like that very often back in college. "He lost his driver's license at the end of the last book, right? You could start the next one with him standing at a subway station and ... I don't know, cursing his life. This way you've also got a possibility to give a bit retrospection on what happened in the last book."

Alec simply stared at him with big eyes. That wasn't a bad idea, but there was something else he wanted to know first. 

"Di-did you read the last book?"

"I've read them all." Magnus crossed his arms in front of his chest and after a little while of silence that smile crept back on his lips. "And I liked them."

"Did you know that I wrote them before or after you've read them?" Alec felt his heartbeat picking up in anticipation of the answer and he had no idea why. He had never hidden the fact that he was writing and publishing books, but had never wanted people to read or buy them because they knew him. He wanted them to like it because of the story, because of the words printed on the paper not because of himself. That was the reason why he had chosen the pseudonym J. C. Wayland for his publications. 

"I didn't know in the beginning, but I figured it out along the way." Mganus tapped his chin with his index finger. Alec tilted his head in confusion. 

"How did you find out that it was me?" He had a homepage, but without a photograph or his real name. He had never done public readings or book signings. A fact for which his agent had more than once threatened to cut off his head. She had even tried to lure him to such an event, but Alec had managed to escape before anybody could have spotted him. He was still in equal parts embarrassed and proud of that day.

Of course, if he was asked if he wrote these books he wouldn't deny it, but not that many people ha asked him that yet. And Magnus hadn't asked at all, but he was just standing in front of Alec completely relaxed and smiled at him with one raised eyebrow. 

"Sweety", he started as if the answer was obvious and Alec only flinched a bit at the nickname. "I've read most of the stuff you've written in college. I know your style. Your way of porting characters, describing surfaces, your slightly twisted humor." Alec scowled at him. He wasn't that easy to read, right? And what did Magnus get to read anyway? The few things that were published in the college paper? He was pretty sure that his 'style' had changed since then. Magnus' smile only got wider and it made Alec scowl even more. He leaned forward a bit his arms still crossed and Alec felt himself reminded of a lime green pullover. 

"Just trust me with the subway station, okay?"

With a snort Alec blew a strand of black hair out of his forehead. Not that it stayed out of his eyes like this, but it was the thought that counted, right? The action that delivered a message. 

"Why should I trust you with anything?"

Magnus grinned and it was the grin Alec had seen on so many occasions during college. It was the grin of a predator and he himself didn't quite like the fact of being put into the the role of the prey. He wasn't the prey. He could hunt on his own. 

"Do you have another idea?"

Sadly, Alec didn't. Magnus knew it and with a low chuckle he stood up straight again. Then he turned around and walked back to the little table between the TV and the couch. He got seated on top of it again and picked up the half-finished crane he had put down before. Alec watched him for another few moments, but he had to finally accept that Magnus' idea was the best one he had so far. With a quiet sigh he looked at the screen and that annoying blinking line. A subway station, hm? 

He closed his eyes and thought back to the last day he had taken the train. The sound of the train rushing into the station, the squeaking of the brakes, the cool breeze when it passes the waiting people. There are a lot of people, it's around 8 o'clock in the morning, everybody is on the way to work, nobody wants to be late, but hardly anybody really is motivated. A lot of yawns get drowned by the computer voice that announces the next train. It's kind of cold underground and Will - one of the protagonists - turns up his collar. His gloomy gaze is focused on the tiles beneath his feet. He is standing near the line that should keep the people from getting too close to the entering train. Will is in a foul mood because he has to take the train. He already knows that at his office he'll have to deal with the teasing of his colleagues. Everybody knows that he had lost his driver's license because of a car chase during the last investigation. It definitely won't do his chances with the cute secretary - her name is Tessa - any good.

Alec opened his eyes again and looked at his fingertips that were resting on the keyboard. This could work. And with that thought he started typing. 

-+-

Magnus smiled to himself as he listened to the sound of Alec's typing. If he guessed right the other man had gotten even faster. It was something Magnus had always admired about Alexander Lightwood. He could type at an amazing speed, but it was actually only one small thing of so many more reasons he liked him. 

With his journey to New York Magnus had put everything on one card. He had quit his job, solid his apartment back in Marseille and he had sold most of his belongings as well. All of it just to make sure that he wouldn't chicken out. That he wouldn't turn around to hide within the safety of his own home. He made it all the way and even got Alec to let him stay, but he was still scared. Scared, that he couldn't get him to believe his feelings were sincere, that he would just send him away again. 

With a stern look Magnus stared down at the folded paper in his hands. No, wouldn't let that happen. 

His eyes trailed to the electric blue fabric of his shirt and he couldn't help but grin at the memory that surfaced again. 

-+-

_He loved tickling Alec. He loved fooling around with him. He loved feeling his breathless chuckle against his lips afterwards. He loved pecking his lips first and slowly deepening their kisses, letting him catch his breath only to take it away again._

_"You got glitter on your hands", Magnus whispered against Alec's lips and grinned at the sight of his blue eyes growing big and round. Alec tried to sit up, but Magnus didn't let him, so he lifted his hands above his face. He splayed his fingers and squinted at them while searching his skin for the tiny flecks of glitter. When he spotted the thousands of tiny sparkling spots scattered all over his hands he let his head fall back into the mattress and groaned loudly in a way that made Magnus swallow hard, but luckily he noticed something else that took his mind off the other part. Alec had the habit of burying his face in his hands whenever he was confronted with something that frustrated him and glitter pretty much had always been among the first things on that list. Magnus would never understand that, but if it gave him the chance to tease Alec with the threat of putting glitter in his hair while sleeping, he didn't care. But now Alec had his hands kind of coated with this stuff that had stuck to his skin from when he had inspected the pullover and by covering his face with his hands like it was his natural habit ..._

_Magnus had to bite his lower lip to keep himself from bursting into laughter. "And now", he managed to say with an almost completely calm voice, "you have it on your face too."_

_Alec almost hit Magnus' nose as he ripped his hands away from his face. He blinked a few times and when he realized his mistake his eyes went wide with an expression of pure horror. "Oh, no, no, no", he whined pressing his eyes shut, "I have to take a shower, NOW!"_

_With that he once again tried to get up and off the bed towards the bathroom. Without success. Magnus couldn't take it anymore and burst into laughter which got him a glare from Alec, but with the twinkling glitter all over his face he didn't look as threatening as Magnus knew he could._

_He had seen him fight, had seen his blue eyes dark and angry and so very cold. To see the same boy desperately wiggling beneath him had an absurd humor to it and Magnus loved it because the emptiness in those blue eyes he had seen that night when they had first met had scared him a little bit. It had been a dull blue._

_"No, really, Magnus, let me get this stuff off. I have to-" The rest of the sentence was drowned by the sound of Magnus' laughter. Alec sent another glare and it only made him laugh harder. He didn't know why, but it was easy to laugh when he was with Alec._

_"You are not taking me seriously, are you?", the younger boy asked with a dead serious expression on his twinkling face. It had the same effect as the glare before. Magnus grinned at him and hungrily caught his lips with his own. He parted them and felt Alec's body slightly arch off the bed when he ran his tongue across the roof of his mouth. Alec made a sound of protest in the back of his throat, but he didn't push Magnus off. Instead Magnus could feel Alec's hands rubbing across the skin of his chest in an attempt to get the glitter off otherwise._

_As they parted again Alec pursed his lips and squinted at Magnus with the maliciousness of a five-year-old who had been denied the sweets before dinner. It had been that morning, that Magnus had almost let three little words slip past his lips._

-+-

Most people found the sound of typing annoying, but Magnus actually found it very relaxing. Though after about half an hour it got a bit monotonous. He got up from the table and looked over at Alec who was absolutely focused on the screen of his laptop, sometimes moving his lips as he silently repeated the words that he wove together in his head. Magnus liked to watch him when he was writing. It didn't matter if he was typing on his laptop or moving a pen across the pages of a notebook. Alec completely immersed into his own little world when he was writing and in case he was listening to music he would subconsciously move his head softly to the rhythm of the song playing. 

Magnus felt kind of proud that he had obviously proved to be helpful with finding the right start for the chapter. He sat down the finished crane next to him and got up from the little table carefully. On his toes he walked over to stand behind Alec whose fingertips moved across the keyboard in a blinding speed his eyes never once leaving the screen. After reading a bit of what was visible of the document he smiled to himself. It was a dialogue between Will and Tessa. Magnus had enjoyed their bantering from the first book. 

"I like Will, he's funny", he suddenly said and for a moment was scared that he and startled Alec out of his flow, but he didn't even stop typing as he answered absent-mindedly: 

"He is going to die at the end of the book."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beauty on the inside and the outside .... (I feel weird about this chapter ...)

**Chapter 4**

The first time they talked to each other they got into a fight. They got thrown out of the cafeteria and for some reason neither of them remembers burst out laughing outside. People stopped, started staring and whispering, pointing at them. Magnus who had never really cared about other people's opinion simply ignored those looks and slowly managed to calm down. Tears of unexpected joy drying in the corners of his eyes. Then he turned his head to look at Alec. Maybe out of pure curiosity how the grumpy emo kid would handle the situation, maybe out of fear Alec would get scared by the weird looks and wouldn't dare to laugh like that again, maybe to be there to protect him. But when the grumpy kid noticed that other people were staring at him he grinned like a predator and stuck out his tongue at all the gawking idiots. With a final deep breath he pushed himself off the wall, picked up his shoulder bag and left leaving Magnus behind without another word. 

Magnus liked to think of that moment as the one he fell for Alexander Lightwood. 

-+-

"Rise and shine, grumpy kid."

"Fuck off, sparkles."

Magnus grinned while leaning against the doorframe of Alec's bedroom. "Still not a morning person, sweetheart?" He sent Alec a sugar sweet smile and the writer glared daggers at him from beneath the blanket in return. 

"Get the fuck out and close the damn curtains", Alec hissed with a truly menacing tone. Magnus smirked. 

During college there had been one student who had always been late to the morning classes. Of course, he hadn't been the only one, but no other student had gotten away with it. That student's name was Alec Lightwood and it hadn't really helped his sister's everlasting quest to find him friends. Magnus had no idea how Alec had bribed a doctor to actually write him a medical certificate which attest him some kind of sleeping disorder that made it impossible for him to get up early enough to get to the classes in time. Though to Alec's defense Magnus had to say that his favorite grumpy emo really had tried to get up on time. He had always failed because six o'clock simply wasn't Alec's time of the day, but it was the thought that counted, right? He had tried everything; setting an earlier alarm, preparing clothes and the needed books for the next day on the evening before, going to bed early and everything that he could think of. But even if he got out of bedim time for classes he would get lost on campus because he had to skip his morning coffee or would fall asleep during class ... or Magnus wouldn't let him leave the bed. And some things obviously never changed. 

"Come on, Alec, it's already past ten. The sun is shining-"

"And if the sun would commit suicide, I'm not getting up yet. So close the fucking curtains and get the hell out of my bedroom."

Magnus let out a silent whistle. If there was a possibility to kill with the mere human voice, he was sure Alec would be the first one ti find out about it ... or create the possibility. But in the end it was this aggressiveness among other things that made Magnus long for Alec even more. The writer was far more than nice to look at - very nice to look at. There was something to hearing an angry voice break into a begging whisper and drowning furious yelling with passionate kisses that never failed to turn him on. Magnus smiled smugly at the memory of some of the fights they had during college. They had led to the best sex he had ever had. Alec couldn't be described as the most emotional person, but there was nothing that rivaled his eyes in beauty whenever pure unmasked emotions washed over him. It happened mostly with rage and anger because those emotions let him lose control. There had been one time when Magnus had kissed burning tears from his cheeks and the following night had been the most intimate one they had ever shared. But the memory was blurred. Their last time together before the end of college, before Magnus had moved to France, before he had said what he though would be his final goodbye. How things could change.  

He had spent nights lying awake next to Camille thinking of that night, reliving it in his dreams and now his memory was suddenly blurred. Cruel fate. But even if his memory of that night wasn't clear anymore, Magnus could still remember the intense emotions he had experienced that time and his fingers suddenly itched to yank off the blanket and take Alec here and now. 

He pursed his lisp. "Can I stay if I close the curtains and promise to never try waking you up ... let's say, before noon?", he asked hopefully as he sauntered over to the two big windows. While waiting for the answer he closed one of the curtains halfway. The blanket started moving again and where before only Alec's eyes had been visible, now his whole head was showing. The ink-black strands stood up in every direction and didn't really help the itching in Magnus' fingers. Though the smile playing on Alec's lips sent a shiver down Magnus' spine - not the good kind of shiver. He gulped.

"Dear Magnus", Alec began and his sugar sweet voice made the hairs on the back of Magnus' neck stand up, "either you shut the curtains and leave immediately or I am going to prove you that I am still sleeping with a knife under my pillow."

Magnus found that that was indeed a valid argument, but he wouldn't be his stubborn self if he didn't try one last time. He closed the curtains and the bedroom was bathed in almost complete darkness at the first moment. A few seconds passed till Magnus' eyes had adjusted to the sudden lack of light. Then he carefully tiptoed to the bed and kneeled down next to it, so his eyes were almost at the same height as the mattress.

He knew how the mattress felt against his bare skin and that there was enough space to fit two grown men on the bed. 

"So, if you're still sleeping with a knife under your pillow", Magnus whispered to where he suspected Alec's head to be beneath the blanket. The writer had retreated under the fabric again after the curtains of the first window had fallen shut. "Does that mean that you're also still as fond of cuddling in the morning as you used to be?"

He got a muffled, but immediate answer.

"GET OUT!"

-+-

Normally, Magnus wouldn't be up that early and usually Alec was already awake whenever he got up. But due to Alec's habit of going to the bathroom early in the morning and slamming the door shut afterwards ... well, at some point Magnus simply gave up. He planned on getting earplugs as soon as possible and then he would let a metal pot fall on the floor in front of the bedroom door. Right now, it was still enough to indulge in the simple fantasy whenever the bathroom door slammed shut. The pot would clatter across the parquet accompanied by the symphony of a lot very annoying 'clang's. They would slowly dissolve into silence only leaving the faint echo of a erratic heartbeat behind, a pulse that had been shocked into speeding up. Magnus smiled smugly to himself, but his thoughts came to a sudden stop when the bedroom door finally opened and Alec stepped out. The spontaneous 'Good morning, sleepy head' died as sudden on Magnus' lips as the train of his thoughts had crushed into an unexpected wall. 

On the previous days Alec always had already showered and was dressed when Magnus managed to crack his eyes open and when Magnus had been in his bedroom this morning coming close to getting his head chopped off, Alec had been completely covered by the blanket - except for his head - and for some reason Magnus had always imagined him as the 'Sleeping in a shirt and sweatpants'-kind of guy, not the 'sleeping in (damn low hanging) shorts and nothing else'-kind of guy.

While being aware of the fact that he was gaping with his mouth hanging open, but not really giving a damn right now, Magnus's eyes were glued Alec's bare upper body as the writer sleepily walked towards the bathroom. Magnus knew that he wasn't working out that much anymore, but back in college there always had been a faint trace of fear in those work outs. Whenever somebody had complimented him on his build or anything like that, strength, speed, whatever there was to compliment on, Alec hadn't blushed and ducked his head like he always reacted on compliments. He had returned a barely there smile and his eyes had turned into dull, blue swamps. Like a clear stream that somebody had thrown a big stone in it and caused the dirt from the ground to rise, caused the little stream to become soiled. 

Of course those other guys had never seen that Alec needed the work out because otherwise he wouldn't be able to hold himself in the almost regular fights with annoying idiots. It had taken Magnus some time to understand that part of him, too. Though it didn't change the fact that the writer still had a body to die - or rather kill for. Magnus had always seen himself as an admirer of beauty even in non-sexual ways. Just for the joy of watching something that delighted the eye. Probably that was another reason that had him kept at Camille's side. She had put her undeniable beauty on display, easily to be seen. Alec on the other hand had always tried to hide his appearance and dragging him out of the shadow of a wall or even recognizing him as a person, not some looser that one could bully. Maybe that was one of the reasons Magnus had gone to France with Camille, it had been easier and even if it hurt to admit it now, he hadn't thought of Alec as being worth the effort. 

"I should get up earlier more often", he muttered to himself while thoughtfully rubbing his chin with his index finger. 

He was close to through a very serious discussion with his inner fangirl about what else there was that attracted him to Alec besides the man's looks when the bathroom door opened again. Majorly surprised Magnus noticed that Alec still wasn't wearing a shirt. He had changed into a pair of jeans, but the faded, now light-blue t-shirt he still held in his right hand. Leaving the bathroom door open to not trap the humid air of the hot water inside Alec caught Magnus not really subtle staring. He tilted his head and with an unreadable expression in his deep blue eyes that could be a warm carribean sea and a freezing lake at the same time, he walked over to Magnus who was sitting between his pillow and a bunched up blanket. Alec's shins almost brushed the couch when he leaned down bringing his face impossibly close to Magnus' own. He smirked. Magnus thought he'd loose it. Alec was goddamn close, his hair still damp from the shower and a few forgotten tiny little water drops were painting invisible patterns in his pale skin holding his gaze and whispering: 

"So, what do you want for breakfast?"

And he didn't even blush or the blush was hidden by the natural red tinge to his cheeks from the hot water. Magnus swallowed hard. His throat was dry. His thoughts were racing, but never reaching a goal. 

"You."

He reached out, but there was no collar to grab because there was no shirt and Alec already took a step back. The smirk turned into a devious grin. 

"Sorry, but that's not on the menu."

He turned around and walked over into the kitchen putting on his shirt. Stunned Magnus looked after him, his mouth hanging open once again. That damn, little tease. But then a sudden anger rose inside of him. He hurried over to where Alec was about to open the fridge. Grabbing the writer's wrist he made him turn around and pinned him against the fridge. Magnus knew that he was wearing the kind of look a spoiled child gave its mother when she dared to say 'no', but he didn't care at the moment. There was one thing that Alec had to understand ... or maybe there were two because first of all he had to understand that there was only so much one could tease without the option of sex any time soon. Maybe there were actually three, but important things first. 

He leaned forward and with his other hand cupped Alec's face. He felt the familiar heat of a blush rising just beneath his fingertips that caressed the soft skin. Magnus tilted his head a little, Alec's uneven breath brushing his own lips. The surprise disappeared from his blue eyes and Alec's eyelids dropped halfway as Magnus traced his cheekbone with the pad of his thumb carefully following the faint line down to his chin.

"I have to tell you ...", Magnus whispered and for a moment Alec's gaze flickered nervously, but then Magnus' thumb was at the height of his nose and he ... pinched his cheek as strong as he could. "that you are the worst tease I have ever met."

Alec winced at the sudden pain, but Magnus waited for another few heartbeats before he let go. He rubbed his cheek that now was deep red for a completely different reason and bit his bottom lip while he sent Magnus a very miffed look. But Magnus only grinned at the pouting writer. He simply had to learn some things. 

"You don't tease a man who has the hots for you like that after you already denied him sex, sweety", he stated matter-of-factly and Alec stuck out his tongue at him. 

"Fine, I won't do it again. Sorry", he muttered and rubbed his cheek. Maybe Magnus shouldn't have pinched that hard, but he wanted to make a point. There was only so much one could take with the help of cold showers. 

"Oh, I didn't mean that I didn't like it", Magnus replied with a crooked smile on his lips. He raised one hand again and softly traced Alec's cervical artery with the nail of his index finger. "But it's much more fun when I actually have the option of throwing you on the bed and have my way with you."

And the blush was back full force. Alec scowled at him, but he had to know that this never really worked whenever he was blushing.

"Fine", he mumbled and slapped Magnus' hand away which was still lingering on his neck. "But is that really all you're thinking about?"

Confused Magnus raised one eyebrow. "Well, this morning I was only thinking of canoodling with you, but you wouldn't let me." 

The blush was fading and now the glare was actually working. It was almost scary how fast Alec could go from 'adorably flustered' to 'seriously pissed'. "We both know what 'canoodling' means in your world."

Magnus rolled his eyes at him and let out a heavy sigh. "Fine, I was only thinking of cuddling with you." And this time he put extra emphasis on the 'cuddling'. Well, he had thought about it as a 'start out harmless and let's see where it takes us'-opportunity, but Alec didn't really have to know that. 

"Why are looks that important anyway?", the muttered question Alec posed more to himself than to Magnus, but the hacker still heard it. Heard and raised both eyebrows. 

"Because it is what meets the eye, the first impression, the start of every hot night-" He stopped when he got a second glare, but this time he didn't understand it. "What?" 

"Good looks lead to one-night-stands. A good personality leads to a good relationship. A relationship build on physical attraction can't work."

Magnus knit his brows and observed Alec for a while. He had crossed his arms in front of his chest. His lips were a grim line and he frown at a spot on the floor about which Magnus couldn't care less. 

"Honey, in every relationship there is physical attraction and I bet that in the beginning of the most 'Happily ever after's there was only that. Something catches the eye and then the personality is what keeps it going", Magnus said with a much softer voice because it was clearly visible that there was something about this topic that really bothered Alec and well. as cheesy as it might sound, Magnus wasn't happy when something was bugging Alec to the point that he was physically fighting with something. "Sweety, what is wrong?" 

He really started to get worried because there actually wasn't that many things that could get to Alec like that. He had his sensitive moments and there were things he was more emotional about than otters, but when it came to dealing with problems or difficult topics he had always managed to keep them at a down-low, so they would get the better of him. Now, that he was thinking about it, Magnus had never seen Alec so torn before. 

Finally the writer took in a deep breath and while he still refused to meet Magnus' eyes, there was at least some tension leaving his shoulders. 

"When ... when I was young, a child in elementary school", he began with a shaky voice. "I was ... overweight."

Magnus' eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. That was an interesting information though imagining Alec as a corpulent child wasn't really working in his mind. A short moment of silence passed and Magnus realized that he was supposed to comment on what he had just learned. "Okay", was all that came to his mind. Where the hell was his eloquence when he needed it ... or whenever he was alone with Alec? What kind of cruel fate-joke was that?

Alec let out another sigh, but when he continued his voice gained strength with every word. "The other kids always made fun of me and when someone got the stupid idea to start a rumor that I'd be in love with one of the girls; they would look disgusted and call out 'why would I like him? He is ugly, he is fat'" And that was the point when his confidence issues had been born, Magnus thought, thank you very much, cruel, little kids, I don't like you. "In middle school I started working out, entering several sport clubs ... oh, and I started growing around seventh grade. That helped as well." A faint, empty smile appeared on his lips and Magnus wanted to punch someone. Preferably one of those cruel bullies. "Later in high school I stared getting compliments on my looks and I liked it" A spark of light in blue depths, but it was gone as soon as it had come. "But then I realized that I got only complimented on my looks. What I said, what I wrote, it just felt ... I felt like a hollow shell."

Two pieces fit together and Magnus had another part of the puzzle that was the man in front of him. 

"That's the reason you hide behind those hideous sweaters and the baggy jeans?" Magnus wanted to hug him and never let go. He actually had felt that urge more often during the past week. Alec snorted. Only a faint trace of his usual mischievous smile was back on his lips, but it was the right way. Keep going, the little voice in the back of Magnus' head whispered.

"No, I like those clothes, they are comfortable."

"You're kidding, right?"

Then there it was. A flood of strong, honest laughter and a grin remaining on the writer's lips. "I'm not and the sweaters in my closet are counted, just so you know."

Magnus blew a strand of hair out of his forehead not looking the least bit impressed. Alec chuckled softly and it made the day suddenly so much better. But there were still more serious issues to be discussed. 

"So, it's the reason why you use a pseudonym for your books and why there is no picture on your homepage?"

"Yes and no, I simply don't like publik attention and people should read the books because they like the words printed on the paper and not for some other reason."

With pursed lips Magnus lightly put his arms on Alec's shoulders. Alec didn't pull back this time. He only leaned back against the fridge a bit to support the extra weight. 

"Then what is the reason?"

Magnus knew that Alec didn't tell dark childhood stories for fun. The writer bit his lip and once again avoided Magnus' gaze by at some point on a wall behind the hacker. 

"Well, I never quite ... liked the people that didn't see more of me than the surface. I always thought of them as stupid and superficial. Okay, I hated them, found them to be below me, not worth my anger and-"

"Which ain't that wrong."

"Shut up and let me finish."

"Yes, sir." 

Another laughter and even if the sky outside was grey with heavy clouds, there was a certain light to Magnus' little world. The one he had built for himself since his parents had died. 

"I don't know, you never complimented me in college and it was fine in some way, I mean we weren't dating anyway."

He had never complimented him in college? Oh, yeah, right, because he had had Camille breathing down his neck. His girlfriend who for some reason was fine with him sleeping with other people. But flirting with somebody else? No way! In retrospect that girl was quite crazy or weird or simply unsympathetic. Magnus nodded to himself acknowledging that surprising fact.

"And after you moved in here and you started complimenting ..." Alec's voice trailed off. He bit his lip when Magnus looked up to meet his gaze. 

"You are kind of like ... them, well, not really, but it seems and I don't ..." A long pause during Magnus started piecing parts together. "I don't want you to only see the surface, to only be here because of the surface, to only like me because of it ... because there is more."His voice was only a whisper, but in there could heard a certain strength. A strength Magnus wanted to get to know. He smiled at the wary look in Alec's eyes, then he took his arms from his shoulders and framed Alec's face with his hands.  

"I see your problem now, sweetheart, but there are also some things I have to tell you, so listen up." Alec nodded as good as that was possible while having his face held like this. "Number one: you are not doing anything wrong by being attractive. It'd okay to look good or in your case to be hot as hell. It's not something you do to cover up your flaws or take attention away from mistakes. It is a part of who you are. Number two: If it hadn't been for Camille I would have showered you with compliments back in college. And finally number three:" Magnus brought his face a bit closer to Alec's and looked him deep in the eyes. Nothing in his life had ever been as important to him as the fact that Alec would believe what he was about to say next. 

"I know, that you are more than a pretty face. That is the main reason I am here. I want to find out what there is beneath the surface and if I drown in the process."

Seconds passed agonizingly slow. Magnus felt his bones going cold as ice and a fear grabbed his heart like it had never happened before. Alec had to believe him. Magnus was close to falling to his knees and pleading which would absolutely crash with his ego, but for this man he would do it.

"Okay", Alec finally whispered and a shy smile tugged on his lips. "Tell me, what you find."

-+-

Once Magnus was asleep he normally was out like a light. It was the one thing they had unmistakably in common. Only with the difference that Magnus was able to get up on time when he had to. And unlike Alec he had no problems to fall asleep anywhere. 

It was quite fun to watch him sleep because one could do almost anything while he was asleep. On the other hand with Magnus it was like with sleeping cats. Alec could watch them all day long, lazily stretched out across a pillow, a chair, some notebooks. There was a peacefulness to those animals that Alec had always admired. He had always thought that it was something that couldn't be acquired by any human being. 

Then he had met Magnus and had gotten proofed wrong. There had been nights when Alec had spent hours just watching Magnus sleep and in the morning he had been too tired to get up on time because he had stayed up late. 

Alec smiled to himself when he remembered his stupid excuses for why he had overslept. It was true that he wasn't a morning person, but till high school he had always been up on time. Grumpy as hell, but punctual like no other student. Then he got into college and a lot of things changed. 

It had been a long day for him and while Magnus had done the shopping and even prepared every meal. Well, dinner had been chinese take out, but still. Alec had managed to get the second chapter written. It was going good. Now he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch watching Magnus sleep who was sprawled across the furniture. His chest was rising with the rhythm of his steady slow breathing. His face was perfectly relaxed and Alec could have sat there the whole night. 

His smile grew wider and he felt a little bit giddy as he reached out and let his finger softly brush across Magnus' cheek. 

"Sweet dreams", he whispered. 

Then he pulled his hand back, got up and walked over to the bathroom closing the door silently behind himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glow in the dark-stars and a cat. :)

-+- Flashback -+-

_"Have I ever told you that you tend to get borderline close to becoming a stalker?"_

_Magnus looked up from the screen of his laptop where several windows were open showing different places all over the campus. Camille had crossed her arms on top of the back of his chair and watched the screen over his shoulder._

_"You might have mentioned it once or twice over the past week", Magnus said with a halfhearted shrug of his shoulders and turned back to look at his screen._

_"Well, who is your victim this time?", Camille asked with a sigh._

_Obviously at the moment she had nothing else to do because it was a rare act that Magnus found her interested in how he spent his free time if it wasn't an activate with her. Her blond locks brushed his shoulder when she leaned closer to the screen trying to figure out who Magnus was looking for or who he had already found._

_For a short moment Magnus debated with himself if he should tell her or not, but in the end the habit of not going through the trouble of trying to hide things from her, he clicked on one of the windows to move it to the front and enlarged it._

_"Here, this one", he said moving the cursor next to a boy clad in black who was currently sitting at one of the tables at the cafeteria. He sat there alone and ever since Magnus had found him with the cameras he'd hacked he had felt the strange urge to take a seat next to him._

_"Oh, interesting", Camille chuckled, her breath tickling Magnus' right ear. It was so very different from the laughter of the boy when they had been thrown out of the cafeteria the other day. "One of the emos. What'd he do?"_

_Magnus looked up at her green eyes once again, an expectant and curious shimmer meeting him there. "Why would he have to do something for me to ... look for him." He had never been particularly fond of the word 'stalking'._

_Camille sent him a lopsided grin._

_"Come on", she said, "why else would you go through the trouble of hacking the cameras. You only do that when there's someone you want revenge on for mocking your way of dressing or dumping coffee on a new shirt." At his bewildered expression she slowly raised an eyebrow and turned her face to look at the screen once again. Magnus did the same though with her next words he wasn't quite sure if they both were looking at the same person._

_"You can't actually want to screw this guy, he's not even easy on the eyes. I mean look at his clothes, he probably has found them in the dumpster and I'm pretty sure that he used duck tape to keep those shoes from falling off." She continued to rant on, but Magnus zoned out and looked at the boy himself._

_Yes, his clothes had definitely passed their prime, but that wasn't everything there was about him to look at, right? The curve of his neck that lay bare as he tilted his head to the right to lean on his right hand. The pale skin that stretched across high cheekbones. The unruly hair, of such an ink-black that it seemed almost unreal and which was practically begging to be ruffled. His eyes that peeked through his bangs following the strings of words on the paper in front of him. The way his lips moved while reading, silently verbalizing whatever was written there. Magnus was sure that he was the kind of person that could get startled by running a single finger down the back of his neck in such a situation. The kind of person that would glare at whoever had done that. The kind of person who could probably be coaxed into smiling an honest smile afterwards with the right words, with the right gesture._

_Magnus wanted to be the kind of person who could make this happen and the moment this realization hit him, it scared the hell out of him._

-+-

_Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep_

_Dreaming about the things that we could be_

_But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard_

_said no more counting dollars_

_We'll be counting stars_

-+-

"Is there a specific reason to why you are lying on the floor?"

Alec heard the door close behind Magnus with a soft 'click'. He grinned without tearing his eyes from the ceiling of the living room. "I was thinking about getting 'glow in the dark'-stars."

An amused chuckle escaped Magnus' lips. The sound of his footsteps followed him as he walked across the living room. Alec closed his eyes and listened to the footsteps of his new and sort of old roommate. An honest smile tugged on his lips.

"Stars?" Another chuckle. Judging from the volume Magnus stood by the kitchen counter. Alec could hear the rustling of the paper bag, the dull thud of the milk carton, other softer thuds, apples rolling around. Rolling over the edge? Alec lifted an index finger, expecting the sound of an apple meeting the parquet, maybe two, but it didn't come. 

"Nice reflexes", Alec said a grin forming on his lips once again. 

Silence. Another chuckle, almost a laughter. 

"Did you turn into some kind of mind reader while I was gone?" The playful teasing lacing Magnus' words question made a gentle warmth spread near Alec's heart. His index finger dropped back to the floor, the tip touching cool, but not really cold wood.

"No, don't worry, I just like to simply listen to ... things once in a while - it helps relaxing the brain."

"Oh yeah?" the smirk was clearly audible. 

Alec allowed his thoughts to wander once again as he had done before Magnus had returned, before a second voice had scared off the emptiness that invaded the apartment whenever Magnus wasn't around. It felt weird for Alec to have somebody to wait for, to look forward to seeing again. But it was the good kind of weird. 

-+-

_Alec felt a sudden sharp pain in his right ear though it disappeared as fast as it had come. The same happened with the music he had just been listening to. With a mixture of confusion and irritation he blinked at the guy who had ripped out one of his earphones._

_"What the-?", Alec started, but he was interrupted by the cheerful voice of another student which seemed absolutely not fitting for the current situation - or so he thought._

_"That's why you didn't react, you simply didn't hear me - and I was already anxious you might be ignoring me."_

_Alec narrowed his eyes at the young man standing in front of him. Sparkling colors greeted his eyes on a closer inspection of the others attire. Artfully smudged eyeliner created wafting shadows around fascinating eyes._

_"You're that idiot from the cafeteria", Alec growled, his own eyes flossing with recognition. "What do you want?"_

_"Magnus." The idiot's smile seemed immovable, though there could be seen a gentle light flickering in those green eyes - if you'd squint hard enough. Alec had never been very fond of squinting, It was way too easy for him to get a headache from doing it for too long._

_"What?"_

_"Magnus, that's my name and to be honest I prefer it over 'idiot'."_

_Alec raised one eyebrow. "And I should care about that because ...?"_

_The smile on Magnus' lips slipped a bit, but only to turn into a lopsided one which ended up as a smirk. "Well, I assumed that you wouldn't want me to continue running after you while yelling 'grumpy kid'?"_

_It felt like the heat of the sudden blush would sear the skin on Alec's face. So that was what he hadn't heard before. "You did not", he hissed, but Magnus only chuckled and with that he crushed every last hope it might have been a joke. Alec groaned and buried his face in both hands. Eventually he sighed and looked back up at Magnus again._

_"What do you want from me? Just spit it out!"_

_But Magnus didn't answer. He only raised one eyebrow. A silent challenge hidden within his unspoken words. Alec knit his eyebrows wondering if he might have gone mute over the past couple seconds. He was about to do just as that when Magnus opened his mouth again. Though this time his voice was considerably louder._

_"Oh, if you must know, grumpy kid, there are indeed several things that I-" In an act of sheer panic Alec clapped his hands over Magnus' mouth making him effectively shut up. His blue eyes were wide, his heart was almost ripping through his ribcage. The other student raised his other eyebrow as well, patiently looking down on Alec who was slightly shorter than him. But only by a few inches._

_"Okay, okay", he took a deep breath, "what do you want ... Magnus?"_

_The other's green eyes brightened visibly and Alec would spent the rest of the week trying to forget about the sensation of Magnus' lips brushing against the palms of his hands as they slowly curved into a smile. Alec took his hands away again. Maybe a bit too hastily._

_"Your name."_

_"My name? What? All this because of that?" The words awkwardly stumbled over Alec's lips while his eyes stayed locked with Magnus' green orbs. The other student only nodded. For a short moment Alec closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath. He brushed one hand through his always messy black hair. "And I guess simply asking 'Hey, what's your name again?' has become uncool somewhere between breakfast and lunch?"_

_Magnus only shrugged. "Maybe. So, do I get an answer or do I have to proof to you that I am a man of my word?" That damn smirk, Alec hissed inwardly. He gritted his teeth and felt his cheeks burning up again. Why did this guy, Magnus, have to make such a big deal out of it? And why did he care anyway? It was just a name, his name, nothing special._

_"It's Alec, Alec Lightwood", he muttered and he could see how the expression on Magnus' face softened, that gentle light flickering in his eyes once again. This time he saw it, he really saw it. He didn't have to squint to catch a faint trace of it and it didn't disappear when a new string of words escaped Magnus' lips._

_"Nice to meet you, Alec Lightwood, my name is Magnus Bane."_

_Alec felt a light chuckle bubble up in his throat, despite himself. His lips weren't able to hold it back and so the chuckle rolled over his tongue, fleeing the cage of his usually tightly shut lips and it carried the first thought along with it that jumped into Alec's mind._

_"That rhymes", he chuckled feeling how a tiny bit of the usual tension gripping his shoulders faded away. "It's not the best one, but still ..."_

_At first Magnus tilted his head a bit a puzzled expression resting on his face, but then it slowly dissolved like fog losing its battle against the rays of sunlight. Eventually he grinned at Alec with a fond look in his eyes which the younger one didn't quite get. Though before he could ask Magnus why he was looking at him like that, the young man in question raised one hand and ruffled Alec's hair in a loving gesture. It was the first time ever that Alec didn't mind._

_"You're weird", Magnus whispered letting his hand rest on top of Alec's head just a little while longer. "But in a good way."_

\--++--

_Magnus felt like he could stay like this forever. His fingers entangled in those soft raven locks, with those curious blue eyes staring up at him._

_Alec didn't know that he had spent most of his free time since their fateful encounter at the cafeteria trying to find out as much as possible about this 'weird, but in  a good way'-emo kid. The first thing he'd found out had been his name. Alexander Gideon Lightwood._

_He knew what classes he had this semester, how old he was, where he was born, which school he'd attended, how often he had to change schools, that he had a few sessions with a therapist because of his bad temper and antisocial behavior. Magnus knew a lot about this guy standing in front of him and he knew that knowledge was power. A power he loved to hold, to wield, to use against the rest of the world. He knew how to slowly invade other people’s mind how to make them do what he wanted._

_So, why had he spent the whole night trying to think of an excuse to talk to Alec? Why did he even need one? Why didn't he just talk to him, confront him with the things he knew about him? Why didn't he use the power he already had? Why didn't he make him ... well, what? What did he want Alec to do?_

_Alec eyed him suspiciously and Magnus couldn't blame him, but before he could pull his hand back, disentangling his fingers from these black strands which felt cool and warm at the same time Alec simply shook him off and turned around, walking away. Once again he left Magnus behind without another word and with the prodding thought that maybe this time he was powerless after all._

-+-

A soft voice broke through the fog of the blurred memory.

"I feel something so right

Doing the wrong thing

I feel something so wrong

Doing the right thing

I couldn't lie, couldn't lie, couldn't lie

Everything that kills me makes me feel alive."

Alec cracked one eye open. The next second both eyes flew open wide with shocked upraise because he found Magnus' face only inches from his own. Magnus cocked one eyebrow, teasingly grinning down at him. 

"So much for the hearing, hm?" He chuckled at Alec's following glare. Magnus' face was upside down because he was sitting or kneeling on the floor behind Alec's head leaning on both hands which were placed on the left and right side of the dark halo Alec's hair formed on the living room floor. 

"My hearing is still good enough to be able to say that you missed a couple of notes", Alec muttered sullenly. Magnus sent him a dazzling grin and bent down to swiftly press his lips against the writer's forehead. 

"Good to know, sweetheart. I was starting to get worried." Magnus was about to get back up again, but Alec held him back grabbing his wrist on a sudden impulse. 'Don't leave', the little voice in his head whispered. 

"What do you think about the stars?", he asked, blue eyes averting green ones, pale fingers firmly grasping tan wrists. 

"The stars?"

"Yeah, 'glow in the dark'-stars."

Thoughtfully Magnus raised his gaze towards the ceiling. Alec watched him, letting his own gaze trailing over the curve of his neck, the line of his jaw, subconsciously rubbing his thumbs across the skin of Magnus' wrists in small, barely-there circles. 

Since he'd been a little child Alec had loved to decorate the walls of his room with those little plastic stars. He had even arranged them in zodiac signs though not the ones everybody knew. He had created his own signs because he hadn't wanted to replicate the night-sky on the ceiling and the walls of his room, he had wanted to create his own, his own sky to look at, to dream beneath. So, every night  before going to sleep, before closing his eyes, he would look up at the 'little duckling', the 'seahorse', the 'smileyface' and many others. He kept enlarging his collection and changing their places until the day he moved out of his parent's house.

"Let me do something before I give you an answer to that question." Magnus gently pried his wrists from Alec's surprisingly firm grip. Eventually Alec let him go. He turned his head to watch Magnus get up and walk over to the wall next to the doorway that led to Alec's bedroom. A soft 'click' sounded and the light of the lamp on the ceiling died. It took Alec a few seconds to adjust to the missing light and by the time he had managed to Magnus had already sat down next to him. 

"What are you planning?", Alec asked with only a little bit of wavering in his voice. Magnus grinned at him, white teeth almost shining in the dim light which got slowly broken by the sunlight sneaking in from outside. 

"Don't worry, sweetheart, I won't do anything" He looked down at Alec for a while and then lowered his head a bit more, bringing their faces closer to each other. "Not unless you want me to."

Alec turned his face away, but the fading darkness of the room was hardly enough to hide the blush creeping on his face. "So, what was your plan then?", he muttered still focusing on a spot on the wall next to the couch. He heard Magnus' low laughter behind him, then the rustling of clothes. 

"I just wanted to get another angle of view."

-+-

Magnus lay down next to Alec, their arms slightly touching as he positioned himself to look up at the darkened ceiling as well. 

"Hmmmm ...", Magnus tilted his head first to the right then to the left. "Yeah, I think some 'glow in the dark'-stars would be nice." Satisfied with his decision and final answer he nodded to himself. A snorted laughter sounded next to him and when he turned his head to look at the writer he was met with a disbelieving but gentle smile. 

"What?", Magnus asked.

"You had to turn off the light for that?"

"Well, not everybody can have your magnificent imagination." 

Alec went quiet for a few heartbeats and Magnus was afraid he'd taken it too far with the teasing, with the sarcasm lacing his words. Maybe it had been too strong? But instead of being offended, Alec rolled on his stomach, edging closer to his roommate like this and propping himself up on his elbows his face was hovering over Magnus' this time. A lazy smile danced on his lips.

"Why do people keep saying that?"

Magnus' eyebrows shot up, closing the distance to his hairline. "You're kidding, right? I've told you, I've read every one of your books and let me tell you that you have a way to describe things alarmingly vivid. I mean that cellar-scene from the first book ... I still get goose bumps only thinking of the word 'screwdriver'. Look." He raised his left arm as a proof to his words. Alec raised one eyebrow looking at the arm, back at Magnus and then at the arm again. With a disbelieving snort he raised one of his own hands tracing the other's arm with his fingertips. 

"Oh, you'e right", he whispered, but the look of surprise got quickly replaced by one of lazy amusement. "But it still stands, my vivid imagination only works when it's about killing and torturing other people. The way blood drips to the floor, how a saw cuts off-"

"Aaaaaand stop right there", Magnus interrupted him taking back his arm and crossed his arms in front of his chest, then started rubbing his upper arms. "I get it without you going into the creepy details."

Now it was Alec's turn to teasingly grin down at him. "It's one of the reasons I decided to write Thriller and not Romance", he said and Magnus had to fight down the urge to pinch his cheek again. But then a sudden idea popped up in his head. He pursed his lips thoughtfully.  

"So, does this mean that I could out you as a kind of psychopath if I wanted to?", he teased though he'd never even dream of doing that. Magnus wasn't a writer himself, but if he had learned something from reading several thrillers it was that you had to have sort of a dark side if you wanted to be successful. It was one thing to get the right ideas and a completely different challenge to write it down. 

"Yeah, you could do that." The smirk vanished from Alec's lips and something in the mood between them shifted though Magnus couldn't quite put his finger on it. Alec tilted his head to the right and his lips were set in a calm, but strict line. "You know a lot about me", he whispered. 

Magnus felt a lump grow in his throat. He had always paid attention to what he said to Alec, so that he wouldn't give away how much he actually knew and after a bit of a rocky start in college he had actually become quite good at it- or so he thought. On the morning after their 'reunion' he had had the plan of telling Alec about the hacking some day, but as the days passed he wasn't sure about that anymore. Alec knew he was good with computers, but that was as far as it went. Had he possibly slipped too often? Had he been found out? Oh, God ... would Alec actually kick him out? A tiny panic rose inside of Magnus and he was sure it was visible on his face, clearly visible.

Alec narrowed his eyes and brought his face even closer to the one of his roommate. 

"Why is it so easy for me to talk to you about these things?" He bit his bottom lip and frowned at Magnus. "I'm not someone who easily talks to other people about private things."

He was still looking at his roommate, but said roommate had the strong feeling that he was actually kind of talking to himself, muttering under his breath. Magnus felt the lump in his throat and the freezing cold in his guts disappear. The tension left his shoulders and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from laughing out loud in relief.

Alec was awesome at creating criminal master plans for the killers in his book, dropping little hints between the lines and writing dialogues with double meanings which created a tension between characters like only a few others could. In real life though was this writer not really one for figuring out subtle things. It had been one hell of a Mission Impossible to get him to understand that Magnus was 'interested' in him during college. It worked just fine after he had finally gotten the message, but to get there Magnus head had collided with solid walls on more than one occasion. But he had learned to deal with that and had even learned to like this about Alec. 

This time was different. Back in college they had mostly interacted on a physical level, now it was an emotional level. He could deal with low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts or identity crisis, hell, he had even had a course on how to help people figuring out their sexuality - which was far from necessary in this case - but this ... what was he supposed to say? Interacting with other people was easy for Magnus and he also had a few tricks up his sleeve to make others feel more comfortable in his company. He had never used any of them with Alec ... okay, he had tried, but there simply were things that the writer seemed to be immune against, the same went for flirting.

"Because you like me?"

There was no way to answer that question without sounding like an arrogant ass or a creep. Magnus tried the arrogance. That had always worked better for him then the creep. He sucked at being creepy. Also, outing himself as a possible creep could be leading to himself sleeping not only on the couch, but on the floor of the staircase.

Alec didn't look very convinced. "You think I like you?"

"If not, I'd like you to leave me my illusions." That made Alec smile and Magnus wanted to hug him. 

"I think I do." 

His eyes darted to the side and with a blush stating to heat up his cheeks he scrambled to his feet, stepping over Magnus and practically running over to the light switch. The ceiling lamp came back to life and Magnus squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden light. Though in his head he kept repeating Alec's last words. He liked him? Well, he had always hoped that one day - He fucking liked him! Magnus' eyes shot open and he sat up, but still remaining on the parquet of the living room. He watched Alec as the writer sat down at the kitchen table staring at the screen of his laptop, his cheeks flaring red. 

"Wait, does that mean-"

"The 'no sex'-rule still stands."

Damn it!

With a heavy sigh Magnus let his head fall back. _I think I do._ He felt a stupid giddy grin forming on his lips. Granted, it was still a long way from like to love and from thinking to knowing, but it was a step into the right direction, it was a little evidence that leaving France like that had been a good decision, the right decision. He let his gaze wander across the empty ceiling. When he was out shopping the next time, he'd look for some 'glow in the dark'-stars. On a second thought, he should probably rather be looking for a job for being able to pay for those stars himself. At the moment Alec was paying for both of them. Another, more frustrated sigh left Magnus' lips. But then he suddenly remembered something he was meaning to ask Alec for a few days now. He snapped his gaze back at the writer who was still sitting in the exact same position in front of his laptop. 

"Hey, Alec, I've been meaning to ask you something", he said and his eyebrows rose with surprise as he saw the others shoulders tense up. What did he expect him to ask that made him so uneasy? "Do you know who is living at the ... wait, one, two - third floor?"

The tension left Alec's shoulders as soon as it had come. He turned his head and looked at Magnus with confusion written over his face. "Third floor?" Magnus nodded. "Uh, a married couple if I recall correctly, but they had a kind of on-off-relationship if the arguments you could listen to when passing their door stated anything. They moved out about two weeks ago, I think. Why?"

Magnus' eyes went wide with pure shock. "TWO WEEKS?! WHAT THE HELL?", he yelled and jumped to his feet and was halfway out of the apartment when Alec caught him by his wrist. 

"What's wrong, Magnus?", he asked and the other man whirled around, meeting the writer's questioning gaze with one of pure fury. Magnus took a deep, shuddering breath while he tried not to scream at the person who didn't deserve it. 

"Did you ever hear anything when you went past that door on the third floor?"

"No, not that I can remember, the staircase has been surprisingly quiet since they have left."

Another deep breath. Magnus clenched his fists on his sides and was ready to punch something. 

"Did you ever notice something on the wall outside of this building?" Alec looked at him like he had lost his mind. Maybe he was better at the creep-thing than he'd thought, but that was the least important thing at the moment. "On the right side, where that narrow alleyway passes by."

For a few seconds Alec thought about it till his eyes suddenly lit up remembrance. "You mean the stairs?", he asked. "They are for a cat in one of the apartments - there had been an ugly fight with the landlord about it, they lead to the apartment at the-" He became quiet and pressed his lips into a thin line. Magnus nodded. 

"Exactly, they lead to the third floor."

-+-

Together they pretty much sprinted down the stairs to the third floor. Well, it was more like Magnus was sprinting and Alec trying not to lose him while he also tried not to kiss the stairs because of course he hadn't taken any shoes with him. Now he was running down the staircase of the building with nothing but socks; socks that probably were two sizes too big. When Magnus stopped in front of the questioned door Alec would have almost run into him, but managed to stop shortly before that could happen. 

"Listen", Magnus hissed and motioned Alec to put his ear against the door which he did after glancing up and down the staircase. He didn't really have the desire to be seen as some kind of stalking creep by his neighbors, it was bad enough that the old lady one floor above his apartment had found out that he had written the books that had given her niece nightmares. And there was only so much of frantic knocking and 'I know you're there and I want you to apologize'-calls one could take at a time. After a few moments Alec could make out a soft meowing from inside. He looked at Magnus to confirm if he had heard it too or if Alec himself started to imagine things. 

"Did you hear?"

Alec nodded and stepped away from the door. Magnus did the same. Then he knocked on the door. "Anybody home?" No answer, just a louder wailing of a cat. Alec flinched at the sound, while Magnus crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

"So, you think they left their cat when they moved?"

"It has happened before", Magnus growled and stared at the door with narrowed eyes. "And I highly doubt it's forgotten recording that just keeps playing."

It became very clear that this was something very personal to Magnus. Leaving a pet behind like this was nothing any owner should ever even think about, but the way Magnus reacted - that was different level of anger. 

"We should get the landlord and the keys to the apartment-" The words died on Alec's tongue when Magnus sent him a glare that he wasn't used to. Well, he had seen it before, but never directed at himself. It scared him. Alec had always known Magnus had a strength to him that was fascinating, but that also meant that when he took something personal he didn't care about his behavior towards others - like a ticking bomb, only waiting to blow up. Alec swallowed. "-or we could just pick the lock and break in."

Magnus didn't smile and at this moment Alec realized something. As intrusive as the taller man could seem sometimes, his sympathy was still something that had to be earned and that could be lost anytime. Suddenly Alec felt bad for trying to kick Magnus out in the beginning. In a way he had always taken his attention for granted. He had always been there, intruding his world with winks, kisses and stolen touches. Before Alec could think about making a move towards him, Magnus had always been already there. There had never been the need to ... to work for his attention. And even when he had stood in front of Alec's door that first night. He had been there before Alec could have decided to look after him, find out where he lived now and - a bitter taste lay on his tongue - he had been the one to let Magnus go when he had left for France. He had always seen it as a decision Magnus had made, something he couldn't change and they hadn't been officially dating anyway. But that didn't mean anything. He still could have fought for him, asked him to stay, to break up with Camille. But he hadn't done it. He had been sure that only Magnus needed him as a distraction. Never had he thought of himself needing Magnus. 

"I'll be right back", Magnus muttered and ran the stairs back up and Alec looked after him, whispering a silent 'I need you'.

His roommate returned about three minutes later again with a little leather bag which contained lock picks in different sizes. Magnus kneeled down in front of the door knob, going to work. In the meantime Alec glanced up and down the stairs, but luck seemed to be on their side, nobody decided to take a walk or get home. The third 'click' of the day sounded through the empty staircase when the lock gave in and the door swung ajar. Now the meow was louder and it got closer to the door as Magnus tentatively nudged the door to open wider. A pitiable wailing followed the meow and both men looked down to the floor where a little ball of fur stood in the doorway looking up at them with big blue-green eyes. 

The cat looked miserable. The grey-striped fur was tangled in knots and the rips could be seen due to the thinness of its body. The wailing continued and it broke Alec's heart because unspoken words were carried with the sound. 'I'm hungry.' 'I'm lonely.' 'When will the people that looked after me come back?'

"We could be thieves", Magnus whispered next to Alec and when he looked up at the other man, his  gaze was fixed on the little pet, his face a grimace of pain. Alec wasn't even sure if he was aware of the words he uttered. "We could kill him and till the last minute he would think that maybe someone finally came back to feed him, to care for him."

There were tears that had never been cried, almost drowning the whispered words. 

"You're right", Alec heard himself say and Magnus looked up at him as if he'd forgotten that the writer was there. "But we're not." This seemed to snap Magnus out of his trance and the determined look showed on his face which Alec had been met with on the morning after their 'reunion'. 

"Exactly, and we will take care of him." There was a hint of the usual stubbornness that Alec had already grown attached to during college. He lightly shook his head with the faint trace of a smile on his lips. Magnus bent down to the cat, slowly stretching out his hand and the cat rose its head, bumping the nose against his fingertips. Another heart-wrenching wail was carried through the staircase. "It's okay", Magnus whispered. "We're here, we'll take care of you."

Alec who could hear hesitant footsteps from one of the other floors kneeled down next to Magnus. "Maybe we should get inside before somebody accuses us of stealing the cat." At that Magnus sent him a hard glare, but he didn't back down. Caring for an abandoned cat was great and honorable, but that didn't mean they had to risk any possible complication. "You know what I mean", Alec hissed and motioned Magnus to get inside the empty apartment. The taller man nodded and gently nudged the cat back to get inside.

When the door swung close behind them they were greeted with an apartment that didn't carry any trace of somebody living there and surprisingly there also was no trace of a cat apart from the actual cat which started rubbing his head against Magnus' ankles. Without much thinking he picked it up and after some struggling he managed to position it in a somehow sitting posture, so it could overlook the empty rooms. Magnus sighed as he looked down at the cat and gently brushed his fingertips over its head and the knotted fur. "They just left you, little one. How could somebody just leave you behind?" 

Alec looked at him from the doorway of the room that could have been the living room once. In one of the two windows there was a hole through which the cat could reach the little staircase outside. But seeing the hole another question came to mind.

"Why didn't he just leave?" He heard footsteps and when he turned his head, he noticed that Magnus had stepped next to him, looking at the window with the hole too. 

"Cats are more attached to the places where they live in, more than to the people they live with", he said his voice low and gentle as if not to startle the little cat nestled in his arms. "That's why you have to keep a cat inside for about one or two weeks before letting it out because otherwise it might not come back due to the simple fact that the new place isn't yet 'home'. Huh?" Magnus' fingers that had been scratching the cat's neck suddenly stopped and his eyes fixed on something black appearing among the knots and grey stripes. "A collar." He let his fingers follow the black strap of leather till he found little plastic sign. Something was written on it, but for Magnus it was upside down.

"Uh, can you read that?", he asked turning to face Alec who stepped closer and squinted at the sign. 

"Hmmm, I think it's a name ... Cas-no-Chantair ... Chahair ... Chairman? And the second word is Miefo...no-Meooo? Ah, Meow."

"Chairman Meow? That's a weird name for a cat." Magnus raised an eyebrow. Alec just shrugged and looked back up at him again. 

"That's what is written there." He took a second look at the sign. "And there is something written on the back - oh, it's a phone number."

Magnus only snorted in disbelief. "As if I'm going to call those assholes."

Alec sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You know that we have to. To tell them that we found their cat and-" 

"They left him!", Magnus exclaimed and didn't only startle Alec, but the cat to who tried to get out of the embrace of his arms. Regret flashed across his face the next instant and he carefuly scratched the little head of the frightened pet, whispering encouraging words. Alec remembered the gesture and he bit his bottom lip at the memory and the sudden rush of emotion that always came with it. 

"You can call them and then maybe they will just say that they don't have room for him anymore or something like that - then you can keep him ... we can keep him."

"So? What if they want him back?"

Magnus turned on his heels and left the apartment leaving Alec behind like he himself had done it so many times with the other one. He sighed heavily. "Then you can yell at them and tell them to go to hell ... like you always do, when you've made up your mind about something", he whispered and followed Magnus back upstairs. 

They decided that first of all they had to get something to eat for the cat and clean his fur. Getting the first thing done wasn't that difficult because Magnus proofed that he could reach the next supermarket and be back within seconds though Alec didn't really want to know how many angry customers he had left behind. They had also gotten some water in a little bowl and Alec had opted to pay attention that the cat wouldn't eat too much at once. In the meantime he had practically pushed the phone into Magnus' face along with a note with the number from the sign on the collar written on it. Magnus had glared at him and angrily grabbed the phone muttering words under his breath which Alec simply ignored. Now he was in Alec's bedroom yelling and cussing and ranting. From time to time the cat would look up towards the doorway of the bedroom. 

"Don't worry", Alec said and reached out to scratch the little pet behind the ears. "Your new guardian would never yell at you like this." The cat blinked a few times and then lowered its head above the bowl with the water. 

A few moments later the apartment turned quiet again and Magnus out of the bedroom. He walked over to where Alec was sitting next to the cat and sat down next to him on the floor. Then he took a deep breath and placed the phone on the parquet. Alec looked at him expectantly. 

"So? How did it go?"

"They don't remember a cat", Magnus simply stated, Alec raised an eyebrow at that. 

"Oh, really?"

Magnus nodded while inspecting his nails that were missing the usual colorful polish since he'd been forbidden any kind of makeup. "Friendly people."

Alec's lips broke into a grin accompanied by a snorted laughter. He reached up and ruffled Magnus hair that was just as black as his own, but when he wanted to pull his hand away again, Magnus slapped his own hand on top of Alec's securing it in place. He didn't look up at the writer. He moved his thumb in slow, little circles across the back of Alec's hand like the other one had done it earlier this day on the skin of Magnus' wrists. Silence grew between them and a shiver run up Alec's arm caused by the sudden gentle gesture. 

"My mother was a maid at some influential politician’s house", he whispered his eyes focused on the cat in front of them. "They had an affair or maybe he raped her or forced her to have sex with him, I don't know - but she got pregnant." He bit his bottom lip harsh and Alec was scared the skin could break beneath his teeth. "Her religion forbid abortion, so she carried me out in secret, maybe she had hopes to blackmail the politician or that he would leave his wife for her or whatever else you could use a child for." A cold shiver ran down Alec's spine. He noticed that Magnus' grip on his own hand tightened slightly as if he was scared that Alec would pull away any second. "Well, whatever she wanted to do, it didn't work - obviously - because she gave me up for adoption. But you can't do that, right?" And now he looked up at Alec, his eyes almost pleading. "If you decide to have a child or get a pet, you can't just leave it, right? You have a responsibility, right?" 

Alec looked at him, drowned in those sad green eyes and things started to make sense. 

"Yeah, you're right."

He didn't ask how old Magnus had been when he'd been given up for adoption, who had adopted him or how he'd found out about his parents. He just sat there moving his thumb in slow little circles across the others scalp. Eventually Magnus took his hand away again and Alec ruffled his hair playfully trying to break through the fog of dark memories that seemed to thicken around him. 

"It's not okay." Magnus crossed his arms in front of his chest again and squared his shoulders. "And we will take the Chairman to the vet tomorrow ... if he's still talking to us after the bath." 

Alec threw his head back and laughed. It felt good and it earned him a smile from his new and kind of old roommate. 

"How about we get those 'glow in the dark'-stars tomorrow? Together."

"Sounds great."

This time, Alec decided, he would fight. 

-+-

_I feel something so right_

_Doing the wrong thing_

_I feel something so wrong_

_Doing the right thing_

_I couldn't lie, couldn't lie, couldn't lie_

_Everything that kills me makes me feel alive._

 

**Author's Note:**

> freakypumpkin on Tumblr and angrymuffin911 on instagram


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